The malice, ridicule and deception of evangelical atheists

Having recently read the article “the Myth of Moral Chaos”, it bothers me that Sam Harris is not condemning the evil character of militant atheists, and indeed appears to pretend that this problem does not exist. Having dealt with such people face-to-face and on discussion groups, having seen the depth of their inhumanity, I am surprised that no one calls them out for it. I have been harrased by militant atheists and never had this problem from religious people. I have had insults, jeers and sarcastic remarks thrown at me, as well as campaigns of defamation that included repetitions of easily disproven lies and distortions, all for striving to engage in honest and well-meaning criticism of the beliefs of the atheists I have come into contact with. One of these people even described that they were “raising trolling to an art form”.

The overall attitude of evangelical atheists (a term I borrowed from urbandictionary.com and whose definition seems accurate) is one of malice, of deriving pleasure from ridiculing people whose beliefs they disagree with, both due to their conflation of ideas and the people who possess them, and out of a fervent desire to “destroy” and “attack” said ideas through the people they target. Debate and discussion are, for such people, not a means to build knowledge together, but a means to “demolish” it, leaving only what they themselves agree with unscathed. This does not limit itself to religious beliefs. I have seen it happen time and time again that whenever they take issue with someone’s ideas, they will mock the person in private and in public, they will generally express strong contempt towards that person and only address that person’s ideas to the extent that they can use them to show (to themselves if not others) that said person is, in their own words, “stupid”. And after engaging in vividly fallacious smears towards anyone who lies beyond the grasp of honest criticism, they will hypocritically claim to do so in support of “reasoning”, as well as uphold any foul language they use as “free speech”. Thus, they are drawn to atheism because it offers them a convenient supply of true statements to throw at “lesser” people for the sheer pleasure of intellectual vandalism, rather than out of a wise desire to awaken similar truths in their own or in other people’s minds.

One prominent atheist, who goes by the name of Thunderf00t, was recently made the target of a hate campaign that included copyright infringement notices, apparently made by people from freethoughtblogs.com. A prominent female men’s rights activist and antifeminist was the subject of a doxing attack (aimed at getting her personal details so that the perpetrators could carry out future harrassment) when she left a perfectly well-meaning and highly upvoted comment on the youtube channel of an atheist associated with freethoughtblogs.com. One prominent female member of the skeptic community, Rebecca Watson, recently talked (with great pride) about how she repeatedly humiliated her female handler and treated her as a slave for fun as part of her talk at a Skeptic conference, to the cheers and laughter of many in the audience; when this handler texted her in mid-conference to say that she was quitting, everyone laughed again. This is the malicious nature of the evangelical atheist encapsulated in a single event.

Knowledge, wisdom, understanding - these things are not adversarial, should never be and, to the extent that evangelical atheists conceive of them, can never be. One cannot hurt ideas any more than one can build a sculpture out of them. To even conceive of conducting a debate for the sake of inflicting suffering on one’s debating partners, rather than revealing the truth, is to pervert one’s self and potentially the targets as well.

I look forward to a civilized discussion on this, and if anyone else has received hostility from militant atheists, I would be grateful for their stories.

When you were a just kid, did an atheist, even the most extremely militant, inhumane, and evil one conceivable, with bloodshot, crazy eyes rolling back into his head and the still-wriggling veins of a small, unfortunate animal stuck in his teeth, ever threaten to rape you and threaten your family?

If you answered yes to any of these questions, then you have indeed encountered the inhumane depths of evangelical, militant atheists with evil character attempting to inflict suffering on their targets.

But if the worst “injustice” you’ve “suffered” at the hands of atheists is to be insulted on a Web forum because you chose to defend the ridiculous myths that enable the horrible and unforgivable real-world events linked above, then maybe you need to dial the histrionics down a notch or two. Dontchya think? Maybe?

But, go ahead, and tell me how my militant, evangelical sarcasm in this comment proved your point, or make some tired, ludicrous remark about the violence and cruelty of Nazi Germany or Stalinist Russia.

I’m afraid you’ll need to be a bit more specific and elaborative, Shrine, than just “See? This is what I’m talking about.” Apparently I’ve shown you the depths of my inhumanity and my evil nature, and I’ve attempted to inflict suffering upon you with my harassing, militant comment, so hopefully it won’t be difficult to point out exactly how and where I went wrong. Maybe I’ve also included repetitions of easily disproven lies and distortions, that you could, well, easily disprove for us, too, since, well, they’re repetitions of fallacious things that are simple to discredit, and have been, one might conjecture after reading your post, debunked numerous times before in the past, and, one would further assume, in fairly straightforward fashion to boot, so, sticking my neck out a bit further here based on your previous statement, the task would not require herculean effort on your part.

I mean, I guess those are the things for which you consider me culpable, because your original post/complaint said atheists do as much, and after I responded to it, you implied I went there once again with your “this is what I’m talking about” comment.

Having recently read the article “the Myth of Moral Chaos”, it bothers me that Sam Harris is not condemning the evil character of militant atheists, and indeed appears to pretend that this problem does not exist. Having dealt with such people face-to-face and on discussion groups, having seen the depth of their inhumanity, I am surprised that no one calls them out for it. I have been harrased by militant atheists and never had this problem from religious people. I have had insults, jeers and sarcastic remarks thrown at me, as well as campaigns of defamation that included repetitions of easily disproven lies and distortions, all for striving to engage in honest and well-meaning criticism of the beliefs of the atheists I have come into contact with. One of these people even described that they were “raising trolling to an art form”.

The overall attitude of evangelical atheists (a term I borrowed from urbandictionary.com and whose definition seems accurate) is one of malice, of deriving pleasure from ridiculing people whose beliefs they disagree with, both due to their conflation of ideas and the people who possess them, and out of a fervent desire to “destroy” and “attack” said ideas through the people they target. Debate and discussion are, for such people, not a means to build knowledge together, but a means to “demolish” it, leaving only what they themselves agree with unscathed. This does not limit itself to religious beliefs. I have seen it happen time and time again that whenever they take issue with someone’s ideas, they will mock the person in private and in public, they will generally express strong contempt towards that person and only address that person’s ideas to the extent that they can use them to show (to themselves if not others) that said person is, in their own words, “stupid”. And after engaging in vividly fallacious smears towards anyone who lies beyond the grasp of honest criticism, they will hypocritically claim to do so in support of “reasoning”, as well as uphold any foul language they use as “free speech”. Thus, they are drawn to atheism because it offers them a convenient supply of true statements to throw at “lesser” people for the sheer pleasure of intellectual vandalism, rather than out of a wise desire to awaken similar truths in their own or in other people’s minds.

One prominent atheist, who goes by the name of Thunderf00t, was recently made the target of a hate campaign that included copyright infringement notices, apparently made by people from freethoughtblogs.com. A prominent female men’s rights activist and antifeminist was the subject of a doxing attack (aimed at getting her personal details so that the perpetrators could carry out future harrassment) when she left a perfectly well-meaning and highly upvoted comment on the youtube channel of an atheist associated with freethoughtblogs.com. One prominent female member of the skeptic community, Rebecca Watson, recently talked (with great pride) about how she repeatedly humiliated her female handler and treated her as a slave for fun as part of her talk at a Skeptic conference, to the cheers and laughter of many in the audience; when this handler texted her in mid-conference to say that she was quitting, everyone laughed again. This is the malicious nature of the evangelical atheist encapsulated in a single event.

Knowledge, wisdom, understanding - these things are not adversarial, should never be and, to the extent that evangelical atheists conceive of them, can never be. One cannot hurt ideas any more than one can build a sculpture out of them. To even conceive of conducting a debate for the sake of inflicting suffering on one’s debating partners, rather than revealing the truth, is to pervert one’s self and potentially the targets as well.

I look forward to a civilized discussion on this, and if anyone else has received hostility from militant atheists, I would be grateful for their stories.

Humans, those of faith and those without it, are adversarial .
Life is adversarial.

If I understand correctly what you mean by militant atheist, one attribute of such a person is that they say absolutely there is no God and they take great pleasure in the vindictive ridicule of not only those who say there is a God, but those who say there may be a God. If there’s anything I interpreted incorrectly there, please clarify.

I think to the extent that humans are social creatures as we have survived and advanced through tribalism, that vindictive, disrespectful treatments towards others is not going to change their beliefs, no matter how ludicrous those beliefs actually are. In fact, it will only serve to reinforce them, one trivial example among many, “The devil is in them.” Vindictiveness of this sort, in my humble opinion, will only reinforce irrational beliefs.

Having been raised a Catholic, to quote George Carlin, I remained that way until I “reached the age of reason.” I had questions as long as I remember that ultimately lead to the answer, “You do not question God.” Still I had the questions, it’s only natural. In science, we’re taught to question everything. Ironically, I was taught the same thing growing up in a strict Catholic environment regarding science and the “atheistic beliefs” it espouses. Turn that question back on religion though and you’ve got a deal breaker in their view.

Back more to the point of the thread, I’ve heard Sam Harris say he’s certainly open to evidence of God, but he isn’t going to believe based on the insufficient evidence present. Whether Hitchens ever said something like this, I am unsure, even with his “anti-theist” position, but I would imagine that he as a rational man, would’ve been open to it. The difference a lot of people don’t quite grasp is that being open to evidence of God and being open to evidence that there are divinely inspired magical books and God is precisely what is described in them are two quite enormously different things. We have the power of reason and one simply cannot rationally deny the contradictions that are rampant to one degree or another in various religious teachings. Of course all religions are not the same in the extent of irrationality or evil, and I think Sam Harris is quite clear when he points this out.

I think the message to take away is that we should not judge any group by a label and a very important point is that “atheist” is a non-label. Grouping them together is like grouping together “a-Muslims” or “a-Christians.” There’s no commonality there other than a particular shared lack of belief in something. As Sam Harris has pointed out, there’s no such word for non-astrologers. Not all Christians are young earth creationist racists hellbent on converting the world. And, all atheists are not vindictive pricks who treat everyone who doesn’t agree with them as subhuman. But, as one response pointed out, I have to ask, how many people have been killed in the name of “atheism?” I would argue that atheists who have committed atrocities may have killed but it was it the name of some other irrational dogma, not “You believe in God, die in the name of non-God!”

If I understand correctly what you mean by militant atheist, one attribute of such a person is that they say absolutely there is no God and they take great pleasure in the vindictive ridicule of not only those who say there is a God, but those who say there may be a God. If there’s anything I interpreted incorrectly there, please clarify.

I think to the extent that humans are social creatures as we have survived and advanced through tribalism, that vindictive, disrespectful treatments towards others is not going to change their beliefs, no matter how ludicrous those beliefs actually are. In fact, it will only serve to reinforce them, one trivial example among many, “The devil is in them.” Vindictiveness of this sort, in my humble opinion, will only reinforce irrational beliefs.

Having been raised a Catholic, to quote George Carlin, I remained that way until I “reached the age of reason.” I had questions as long as I remember that ultimately lead to the answer, “You do not question God.” Still I had the questions, it’s only natural. In science, we’re taught to question everything. Ironically, I was taught the same thing growing up in a strict Catholic environment regarding science and the “atheistic beliefs” it espouses. Turn that question back on religion though and you’ve got a deal breaker in their view.

Back more to the point of the thread, I’ve heard Sam Harris say he’s certainly open to evidence of God, but he isn’t going to believe based on the insufficient evidence present. Whether Hitchens ever said something like this, I am unsure, even with his “anti-theist” position, but I would imagine that he as a rational man, would’ve been open to it. The difference a lot of people don’t quite grasp is that being open to evidence of God and being open to evidence that there are divinely inspired magical books and God is precisely what is described in them are two quite enormously different things. We have the power of reason and one simply cannot rationally deny the contradictions that are rampant to one degree or another in various religious teachings. Of course all religions are not the same in the extent of irrationality or evil, and I think Sam Harris is quite clear when he points this out.

I think the message to take away is that we should not judge any group by a label and a very important point is that “atheist” is a non-label. Grouping them together is like grouping together “a-Muslims” or “a-Christians.” There’s no commonality there other than a particular shared lack of belief in something. As Sam Harris has pointed out, there’s no such word for non-astrologers. Not all Christians are young earth creationist racists hellbent on converting the world. And, all atheists are not vindictive pricks who treat everyone who doesn’t agree with them as subhuman. But, as one response pointed out, I have to ask, how many people have been killed in the name of “atheism?” I would argue that atheists who have committed atrocities may have killed but it was it the name of some other irrational dogma, not “You believe in God, die in the name of non-God!”

I am weary of the Christian mentality that whines when non-believers protest erecting a cross made of beams discovered in the twin tower’s rubble.
I am weary of those who believe that I am the devil, knocking on my door, peddling their pap.
I am weary of those who want to use my tax dollars to teach creationism in public schools.
I am weary of news casters invoking prayer for the suffering.
I am weary of politicians saying “God bless America”.
I am weary of a pope who bemoans the discrepancy between the rich and the poor.
I am weary of a so called church that protects child molesters.
I am weary of churches whose most basic philosophy says that women are less than men.
I am weary of the stupid grin and the glazed eyes of the born again.
I am weary of fearful children who want to live forever at the feet of a bestial god.
I think that it may be a good time to say “ENOUGH OF THIS BULLSHIT!, before the religious idiots destroy the only world we will ever know.

Gee, SOV, you don’t like your ideas to be questioned and attacked, especially on internet forums and your reaction is to bemoan the bullies? I’ll go easy on you since you’ve just arrived and haven’t posted anything worth discussing yet, but warn you that logical fallacies, playing the victim, poor research, respect for religion, and expect your ideas to be meekly received won’t get you far on this forum. You’ll need to bring your steel plated jock strap and grow some thicker skin if you expect to make it here, or at least as long as I stick around.

When you were a just kid, did an atheist, even the most extremely militant, inhumane, and evil one conceivable, with bloodshot, crazy eyes rolling back into his head and the still-wriggling veins of a small, unfortunate animal stuck in his teeth, ever threaten to rape you and threaten your family?

If you answered yes to any of these questions, then you have indeed encountered the inhumane depths of evangelical, militant atheists with evil character attempting to inflict suffering on their targets.

But if the worst “injustice” you’ve “suffered” at the hands of atheists is to be insulted on a Web forum because you chose to defend the ridiculous myths that enable the horrible and unforgivable real-world events linked above, then maybe you need to dial the histrionics down a notch or two. Dontchya think? Maybe?

But, go ahead, and tell me how my militant, evangelical sarcasm in this comment proved your point, or make some tired, ludicrous remark about the violence and cruelty of Nazi Germany or Stalinist Russia.

Can’t wait.

Agreed.People has always judge other because of their beliefs,but have they considered looking at themselves first before doing so,if you say that atheist are militants and you consider them good,have you considered the mistake and intolerable things that you,your religion have embedded on your brain you can even say if true or not.That is a bigger sin rather than being a realist.